Ophthalmic surgeons perform surgery on various structures of the eye using a microscope to visualize a surgery field. When forming an incision into an eye tissues, the surgeon must advance a surgical blade tip an initial distance into a tissue structure. The surgeon bases that initial distance upon the known anatomy of the eye.
Often, however, the locations of various tissue structures for an individual patient vary from known and expected nominal anatomical positions. This being the case, achieving an accurate initial surgical blade tip insertion distance can be critical to a successful operation.